An Undo Button for Nuclear Armageddon

IN 1956 HENRY KISSINGER speculated in Foreign Affairs about how the nuclear stalemate between the United States and the Soviet Union could force national security officials into a terrible dilemma. His thesis was that the United States risked sending a signal to potential aggressors that, faced with conflict, defense officials would have only two choices: settle for peace at any price, or retaliate with thermonuclear ruin. Not only had “victory in an all-out war become technically impossible,” Kissinger wrote, but in addition, it could “no longer be imposed at acceptable cost.”